Cold
by EnterpriseCaptain
Summary: The Enterprise runs into a spot of trouble and life support takes a hit. Soon, things start getting very, very cold. Unfortunately, cold is one thing Vulcans do not handle well...


"_Spock."_

"_Spock."_

"_Spock!"_

"_Spock, buddy, can you hear me?"_

"_SPOCK!"_

"_Bones, he's not…"_

"_Not…"_

_Spock flitted in and out of consciousness._

"_Bones, he's nearly dead, do something!"_

*****72 Earth Hours Earlier*****

"Damn it Sulu! That was too close!"

Kirk was back in the chair now, having fallen out of it when Sulu made a particularly sharp bank to avoid the ship firing at them.

"Sorry, sir!"

"Evasive maneuver Bravo-Seven! Get us the hell out of here!"

"With pleasure, sir!"

Sulu swung the ship around and they started to put some distance between them and the enemy ship. Things had started to calm down when the ship was abruptly jerked again and alarms began to blare. Kirk's head slammed back and everyone on the bridge fought to keep their balance.

Fortunately, after that things seemed to stop hitting them.

"Chekhov, are those bastards still on our tail?"

"No sir," The Russian spun around in his chair to face the captain. "We're all clear."

"Thank god." Now he could concentrate on his ship and his crew. He tapped a command into the arm of his chair to call down to Engineering.

"Scotty, report. What's wrong with my ship, what'd they hit us with?"

"Sir! Could be a lot worse, but… it's not ideal."

"Scotty, what's wrong, and can you fix it?"

"It's life support, sir."

Kirk felt his stomach drop as the rest of the bridge quieted.

"Scotty, tell me it's still up."

"That's the thing, sir. It's failing."

The entire bridge collectively sucked in a breath, which was ironic, because if life support _was _down, they wouldn't be doing that for long.

"Okay, but can you fix it?"

"Sort of."

"Sort of? The hell do you mean sort of, can you or can't you?"

"I can fix most of it. Unfortunately, they knocked out the transformers and carbon oxygenation filters in the port nacelle and _unless_ we have three spare isotope modification-"

"Speak English!"

Scotty sighed and briefly reconsidered what he was saying.

"Long story short, Captain, I can fix most of it, but without replacement parts, we're shot. Not only that, but they hit part of our core, so we only have backup power, which is limited."

The bridge (and most of the ship) was now dead silent. Kirk took a deep breath.

"Can you keep us breathing?"

"Well, the good news is, I can rig up a temporary replacement for the oxygen system out of what we have here. And the auxiliary power is stable. So we're still breathing."

Kirk felt a wave of relief wash over him, followed by trepidation.

"…..And what's the bad news?"

"The bad news is in order to have enough material and power for that to happen, I'm going to have to cut back on the heat."

Kirk's stomach was feeling hollow again.

"Meaning?"

"Meaning that if I'm going to find a balance that will keep us alive at all, it's going to get very cold and a little hard to breathe."

"How cold, exactly."

Scotty was silent for a moment before speaking.

"Cold, captain. We're going to have to be very careful if we don't want to get hypothermia, and somehow I doubt Dr. McCoy would appreciate that."

Kirk was contemplating his options (of which there were not many) and worrying about his crew, when he suddenly remembered something.

Spock.

Spock, who was a Vulcan.

Spock, who had a higher minimum core temperature and was more sensitive to cold.

Spock, who would die if they weren't extremely careful.

Spock, who…. Looked rather calm, all things considered.

Kirk was still inwardly panicking, but he turned back to talk to Scotty again.

"Well, do what you can. We'll deal with it."

"There's a Starfleet post big enough to have the parts we need not far from here, but we can't warp if we want to keep the system stable. It'll take us a few days to get there.

"Good enough." Kirk clicked off.

He wasn't done yet, though. He tapped some more commands into the chair and accessed the entire ship's intercom system.

"Attention, Enterprise. This is your captain speaking. We've run into a bit of a problem with the life support systems. It's okay, we'll still be breathing and we're not going to freeze, and Scotty's gonna get us a permanent solution in a few days. But that's the good news. Until we can get there, it's going to get awfully cold in here."

Kirk glanced at Spock. His XO still looked unruffled, but Kirk knew this wasn't going to be easy. He turned back to the comm.

"Anyway, if we're going to make it through this without getting hypothermia, we're all going to have to be very careful. If you have extra clothes, now might be a good time to pull them out. Blankets, scarves, jackets, anything to keep yourself warm. If you somehow do end up with frostbite or anything else, report to medical sooner rather than later. We'll be diverting some more power there, so it should be warm enough to allow Officer McCoy to do his job. Meanwhile, I'm cutting shift lengths in half to let everyone warm up. Anyone with a non-essential job should stay with other people and try to keep warm. We might have to shut down sections of the ship to divert power to other places, so keep alert for that."

Kirk paused for a second. He could feel the entire bridge's gaze on him.

"If we play our cards right, we'll be fine. Everyone stay warm. Kirk out."

Kirk clicked off the intercom with only one more task to complete.

"Chekhov."

"Aye, sir."

"Plot a course for the nearest Starfleet post. And then put it on autopilot. We have enough power for that, yeah?"

"Yes sir, but it will be a while before I can accurately lay in the course, sir."

"I hear you. Get it set up and then find a blanket. The bridge isn't exactly the warmest place on the ship."

"Aye, keptin."

"_Damn it, Spock! C'mon!"_

_Spock groaned slightly._

"_Yeah! That's it! Come on! Wake up! Wake up!"_

_Jim?_

_Couldn't be._

"_Spock! Spock, come on, wake up, you're freezing to death!"_

_Freezing?_

_That couldn't be it…_

_He was warm, hot even._

"_Bones! Bones, he's not responding."_

_Bones?_

_That didn't make any sense…_

_He wasn't even on the Enterprise._

…_Right?_

**Day One**

You couldn't really feel the cold yet.

Not really.

Not if you didn't think about it.

At least, that's what Kirk was telling himself.

Lying to himself was the only kind of lying he wasn't good at.

Hence, he was trying yet failing to ignore the slowly lowering temperatures on the bridge.

He'd pulled out his old leather jacket from back in the Academy (which he'd kept, even though he didn't really know why) so he wasn't _that_ cold, but it wasn't exactly comfortable either. He had a sudden wave of curiosity, and pulled up the collar of the jacket to smell it. Sure enough, it still faintly smelled like blood from all the bar fights he'd gotten into before he enlisted.

He wasn't worried. He'd been through enough brutal winters when he was a kid in Iowa that he was fairly confident in his ability to handle cold temperatures.

At least it couldn't snow on a starship.

At the moment, he was wandering around the bridge trying to keep his blood moving. Not many other people were there, except for Chekhov, who was making sure they were on course, a science officer who had come in to keep an eye on the post, and the occasional Yeoman who came in checking up on things every so often.

There wasn't much out there.

Just space.

Not that Kirk had a problem with space, he knew what he signed up for. Like he told Bones when they first met, Starfleet _operated_ in space. Bones had retorted with a remark on the dangers of space, darkness and danger wrapped in disease and silence, he'd said.

Kirk never thought any of that would find a way inside his ship.

The worst part of this whole ordeal is that despite doing everything he could, his crew still wasn't completely safe. Not that they weren't used to danger; Starfleet wasn't exactly a _risk-free_ organization, but this was different. This was the kind of danger that crept up behind you and slowly killed you before you even noticed. This was the kind of danger you had to be constantly aware to fight.

Speaking of aware, Kirk snapped out of his thoughts to find his fingers and toes were seriously cold. He rubbed his hands together and bounced up and down to try and warm up. Undignified, but no one was going to find that weird given the current circumstances.

"Captain?"

It was Rand, who had snuck up behind him wrapped in a thick green coat.

"Yes?"

"You should go warm up. We can watch the bridge for a while."

"Thank you, Yeoman, but I'm fine."

She put a hand on his arm. Kirk shook it off.

"No, you're not. You're freezing."

"So is everything else on this damn ship. I'm not going to leave my post."

She sighed. She knew better than to argue with the captain once he'd made up his mind.

"Fine, but at least let me bring you some warm food. A couple of the replicators still have power."

"Sounds fantastic. Thank you."

She left the bridge and he pulled his jacket a little tighter around himself, wondering when he was going to be forced to get another blanket.

If Rand stuck around, the answer was probably "soon."

"_Move, move, move!"_

_Spock rose a little closer to consciousness, enough to feel something being thrown over him._

"_No! Dammit, Jim, you need that jacket!"_

"_I'll be fine! We're running, aren't we? Besides, Spock needs it more than I do right now."_

_But…_

_But…_

_He was warm, wasn't he?_

_He didn't need a jacket…_

_His captain needed to keep warm…_

_Jim needed to…_

_Jim…_

And Spock faded back to unconsciousness as his two best friends raced to save his life.

**Day Two**

_Oh, yeah_, Kirk thought, shivering. _You can definitely feel the cold now_.

He was pacing around in the mess hall holding a mug of hot chocolate, but the drink wasn't doing much to warm him up and it was cooling fast. He gulped down the rest of it, figuring he may as well while it was still at least lukewarm. He wrapped the blanket he had pulled from his bed a little closer around him, shivering intensely. His fingers were starting to feel a little stiff, and he flexed them a little, hoping it was nothing.

Not wanting to be away from the bridge for long, he headed back towards the turbolift.

Unfortunately, a short Russian teenager holding a blanket ambushed him before he could get there.

"Keptin?"

"Yes, Chekhov."

"Doctor McCoy told me to give you this, and to tell you that, um, if you do not wear it, he will sedate you and strap your frostbitten ass to a biobed, sir."

Kirk raised an eyebrow.

"His words, not mine, sir."

Kirk sighed. He knew Bones was good for his word about the sedative, and he supposed one more way to keep warm wouldn't kill him. Quite the opposite, actually.

He forced down his pride and took the damn blanket. Chekhov's puppy eyes helped.

Wrapping it around his shoulders with the other one, he continued on to the bridge.

Once there, the two other officers that were there came up and asked to leave and warm up. They were looking very cold, so Kirk let them, figuring he could watch the bridge by himself for a while.

He went over to his beloved captain's chair, rubbing off some of the frost that had started to form on the arms before sitting down in it. After a moment, he curled up his legs onto the seat with him and wrapped the blanket around his knees. May as well keep warm if he was going to sit up here all by himself.

He wasn't alone for long, though. Pretty soon, he heard the doors slide open. He twisted around to see his first officer walk in.

"Hey, Spock."

"Captain."

"You know, you really don't have to be here. I'm keeping an eye on the bridge for now. Not like there's a hell of a lot going on right now anyway."

"I thought you might enjoy some company."

"You? No."

"Indeed, it is strange. However, humans do share some desire to not be alone when in unusual situations."

"…I'm not sure whether to be flattered or uneasily offended. Take a seat."

Spock sat down in his customary science officer's post, wrapping his jacket a little closer around him.

Kirk did a double take at that.

"Since when do you have a jacket?"

"It was logical to anticipate the scenario of a colder planet, and to pack clothing choices accordingly."

"Why am I not surprised."

"Presumably your lack of surprise stems from the ease at which this situation can be anticipated."

"God damn it, Spock."

"Is there a problem, Captain?"

"…Just wear the damn jacket."

"Captain, I have been wearing the jacket for the duration of this conversation."

Kirk chose not to respond at all at that point, and snuggled a little deeper into his blankets. His body heat was actually starting to build up a little bit, and the cloth was nearing the level of "comfortable".

He was also starting to realize that he had been awake for nearly 36 hours straight. Now, he'd suffered longer periods without sleep (there was one week of complete hell back in the Academy) but he hadn't been sleep deprived _and_ freezing his ass of at the same time before.

He glanced over at Spock, who, all things considered, looked pretty good. Alert and logical as usual.

Kind of the opposite of himself, actually. Kirk was realizing how tired he felt. But he didn't want to fall asleep, he was keeping an eye on the bridge, and what if Scotty actually managed to fix something while he was asleep and he missed it, or what if someone else needed something, or what if Starfleet commed, or what if…

What if…

He fell asleep in the middle of that thought process.

He woke up to a personal nightmare. One that he was fairly certain he'd actually dreamed before.

"_Come on, come on, come on!"_

"_Bones, what's wrong?"_

"_Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit"_

"_Bones, tell me what's wrong! Tell me what's wrong with Spock!"_

"_Jim, you need to move. Now."_

"_Okay, fine, but not until you tell me something! What the hell is wrong?!"_

"_Jim, get your ass out of my sickbay unless you want Spock to die."_

"_Not until you tell me what's wrong, goddammit!"_

"_Move, okay? Move now!"_

"_TELL ME WHAT IS WRONG!"_

_There was momentary silence until Bones drew Kirk aside for a moment._

"_You understand that Vulcan physiology is inherently different from humans, right?"_

"_I did pass my biology class, you know."_

"_Shut up. One of the biggest differences is their core body temperature and sensitivity to heat and cold."_

"_So they get a little chilly. So what? What's _wrong_, Bones?"_

"_I'm getting there. Shut up and listen. Humans core body temperature hovers at 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit. If it drops down to 95, that's hypothermia. Dropping to 90 is a medical emergency."_

"_What. Does. This. Have. To. Do. With. Spock."_

"_Listen. Vulcans live and evolved on a planet with a higher temperature, so their core temperature hovers at around 95.5 degrees Fahrenheit. It's why Spock's got his room temp higher than we do."_

"_You've been in his room? When?"_

_Bones ignored him._

"_And their copper-based blood means that their temperature lowers way easier than humans do _and_ it affects them more severely. If he drops to 93, it's hypothermia. 92 is a medical emergency."_

_Kirk's stomach dropped._

"_What's his temperature right now?"_

_Bones didn't answer.  
_

"_Bones."_

"_If I tell you, will you leave?"_

_A silent yes._

"…_Jim, it's 91."_

**Still Day Two**

Spock looked dead.

It scared Kirk enough that he leapt out of his chair and bolted over to where Spock was, forgetting his blanket. His adrenaline was so up that not only was he wide awake all of a sudden, he couldn't feel the cold.

Just a second ago, Kirk had been sleepy and half-dreaming. After rolling his head around to look at Spock, sleepiness and his dream-like fuzziness had been almost instantly replaced with alarm.

After dashing over to Spock, Kirk fell to his knees by his first officer, reaching out with cold, quivering hands to try and shake him awake.

It wasn't working. Kirk increased the intensity of shaking, to the point where Spock was being jerked around on the floor, but he was getting no response.

He started to say his name, first quietly, and then escalating the volume until he was nearly screaming in panic and fear.

At which point Bones arrived, got scared shitless by Kirk's facial expression, and then took charge of the situation.

Kirk calmed down enough to help Bones, but not enough to be actually calm.

That wouldn't happen until Spock was safe.

_Kirk sat wrapped in a blanket in the med bay's waiting room, running his hands through his hair over and over._

_Partially to keep them warm, and partially because he was so anxious._

_Nurses kept walking by him, giving him weird, sympathetic looks, and then walking away._

_Of course, he barely noticed._

_His mind was going a million miles an hour, trying to make sense of his situation while simultaneously returning to the same thing over and over._

He'll probably be okay,_ Kirk thought, thoughts flying through his head faster than warp 6. _Bones is really good, and the ship's med bay is really good, and it's a little warmer in here, and oh god is there frost on my shoes, and shit he said 91 why did he say 91 that's not good 91 oh god no 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91.

_Despite his best efforts to distract himself, he inevitably ended up frantically repeating the same number under his breath over and over._

91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91…

_His first officer was a few degrees from dead, and there wasn't jack shit he could do about it._

_For him, it was worse than the time they had been cornered by 6 Romulan arms dealers on Rator III._

_That danger he could punch. This danger? He had to sit like a f*cking extended family member and wait. And wait and wait and wait._

91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91 91…

**two days later**

**location: Starfleet Starbase 11 Planetary Facility**

**medical wing**

_Beep._

_Beep._

_Beep-beep._

_Beep._

_Beeeeeeep._

"Shut the f*ck up."

Kirk reached over his hand and hit the alarm clock on the hospital bedside table hard enough to knock it on the floor.

It stopped beeping after that. Kirk suspected that it would be permanently broken, and he could honestly say that he would not weep for it.

Pushing his face into the pillow, he curled up a little bit and stretched out his arm.

His arm felt oddly warm.

Opening his eyes, he closed them again almost instantly because it was _bright_ in that room, and then carefully squinted them open.

Taking in his surroundings, he noticed four things in quick succession:

One. The bright light was coming from a window across the room.

Two. Said room was in fact a hospital room, and as such was painted in the most boring shade of beige imaginable.

Three. He was lying under the blankets in the hospital bed, his back to the wall, having evidently fallen asleep there.

Four. He was not alone in the bed.

This fourth and final realization was enough to wake him somewhat from his sleep-induced stupor.

Raising himself on his forearms, he turned to look at who else was in the bed with him.

If the soft blue shirt wasn't enough to remind him, the equally soft black hair definitely was, as memory came crashing over him in a deluge.

The realizations, coming at breakneck speeds into his head one after the other, were enough to send him spinning into a fresh bout of agitation as he frantically began shaking Spock.

The fact that they were lying in a hospital bed and not a body bag reassured him a little, but his breath was still coming in short, panicked little bursts and he was still desperately trying to wake up his friend.

Who then rolled over and stared at him confusedly.

And _spoke._

God, Kirk hadn't realized just how much hearing Spock's voice would calm him down.

"Jim?"

Kirk released the breath that had hitched in his throat without him realizing it and laughed a little under his breath.

"You're okay."

"With all due respect, Jim, I was in Doctor McCoy's capable hands. Everything was likely to be, as you say 'okay'. It is hardly as if -"

"Shut up."

"Excuse me?"

Kirk shook his head almost imperceptibly, a grin widening on his face.

"Goddamn. Only you could be so grammatical after almost dying. Just shut up for a second, okay? You're okay, and I'm okay, and it's actually warm – Jesus Christ, it's _warm_ – and we're actually okay for a second and I'm still tired, so can you just shut up for a second and go back to sleep? Because I am not leaving and so neither are you."

This seemed to silence Spock, but he still looked mildly uncomfortable, so after a moments hesitation, Kirk sat up just enough to give him a genuine, heartfelt hug.

Spock stiffened, and in a moment of panic Kirk remembered how uncomfortable Vulcans were with physical contact. Just before he broke away, Spock sat up a little more and returned the gesture.

A few seconds later, in silent agreement, they went back to sleep.

Then Bones came in with a clipboard and a bottle of pills rattling off reminders for Kirk. Though when he saw his two best friends cuddled up like six-year-olds under the covers to keep warm, his voice trailed off and he backed out of the room.

For now, he would let them dream.

Even for just a little while, they had found asylum from the cold.


End file.
